


Doctor Who - Whouffaldi - A Phone Call Away

by Samstown4077



Series: Whouffaldi [9]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Phone Calls, Romance, Sad, after hell bent, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 06:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5365406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samstown4077/pseuds/Samstown4077
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four month after Hell Bent. Clara can't forget the Doctor, neither can the Doctor forget those fussy memories of the woman in his head. Then his phone starts to ring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doctor Who - Whouffaldi - A Phone Call Away

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea while having a sleepless night after Hell Bent. I am actually very sad and can only slowly accept that the Doctor got a memory wipe. But we all know he hasn't forgotten completely. This is my attempt to deal with the series finale and Clara's departure.

It had been four month since she had left the Doctor. Four month since she had stolen a Tardis and had decided to go back to Gallifrey — the long way round.

Ashildr and her were a good team. Proper Girl-Power. Aside she always wanted to call her ME, Clara never could bring herself to do it. Me — that was slightly confusing to her, and so she stuck with Ashildr. Her companion gave up on it after a while.

There was not one day, Clara didn’t think about the Doctor, didn’t ask herself how he was doing, what he was doing and if he had found a new companion.

Sometimes she went in some sort of trance, when there was nothing to do, and there was rarely nothing to do, but when, she was with the Doctor in her mind.

Imagine him in front of her, walking talking, all penguin and grumpy. Sometimes she even had imaginary talks with him.

When they were in danger, when there was a problem that seemed a wee bit too big to solve, then she started to talk with the Doctor, and it pushed her further, made her make the right decision.

Ashildr didn’t comment on it, after being so old and ancient, she had learned that humans acted sometimes strange and funny, and sometimes both at the same time. Clara might was now unable to die, as she was already without a pulse, but she was still a human being. Time would change it, make her become something else. What exactly only time would tell.

Clara had something, Ashildr never had, a backup plan. In case she ever would get tired of living forever, she would go back to Gallifrey, and let them place her back into the moment before the raven hit her. The day wouldn’t come soon. There was too much to see, and too much to live for right now.

And even when every planet was visited, and every adventure was lived, there was still one good reason to not go back to Gallifrey. The one reason that would keep her going till the universe and what was beyond would fall apart.

The Doctor. Her Doctor. They now had each a Tardis, and yes, the universe was big and endless — actually it was just round — and she knew, even with her small, but smart brain, that they would cross path earlier or later.

She not wanted to miss that. He had waited for her 4.5 billion years, that alone spurred her on to keep going. Because she was Clara “stubborn” Oswald, and she could do better than this. If she had to, she would make it double. She could do it, she was sure. And she was sure the Doctor, wherever he was, knew that too.

In the end they could erase his memory all they liked, Clara Oswald was in his head and wouldn’t go anywhere.

And yet, after four month, Clara found herself in the console room — so different to the one she was used to it. They had thought about redecorating, but none of them had been able to find the handbook that explained how one redecorated the Tardis, and so they let it be.

Anyway, Ashildr was asleep, or reading a book, one could never know, but Clara was alone, and staring at one of the monitors. They were in the time vortex, travelling, and then suddenly her eyes fell onto the phone by one of the levers.

It wasn’t the first time she had that thought. No, the first time it had came to her, was a month ago, but she wasn’t sure if she really should do it. If it was a good idea. It probably wasn’t.

Now, time at hand, time to think, she gave into the impulse, into her aching heart, and dialled his number.

A phone call from one Tardis to the other.

It rang a few times, and she was about to give up, thinking he might was busy running down a corridor or whatever, when the ringing stopped and a voice echoed over the speakers.

“Hello?”

For someone so quick witted, Clara had lost her ability to speak way too fast.

“Hellooo?” it was him. His voice, she would recognize it anywhere in the world — better say universe now. She still couldn’t believe he made this possible for her.

“Hello,” she began unsure how to go on. Her voice a bit cracked. There was no plan, no idea of what to say. “Doctor?”

“Who gave you this number?” he grumbled in an instant and it made her chuckle silently. “Who is this? Do I know you? I hope you are not from the intergalactic phone tax company — I told you to never ever-”

“-I am not,” she interrupted, because if she wouldn’t he would go off like a firework grumbling over the line for at least ten more minutes. “It’s me.”

He kept silent, and she wasn’t sure what he was thinking. She couldn’t say if he remembered Ashildr as ME, and so she quickly added, “Me, Clara.”

He had played on his guitar for a bit, in the half lit console room. Nothing special, just some tunes. That’s was what he told himself. Some tunes, that whirled around in his head since four month. Day and night.

It didn’t matter if he was running or not, they were in his head. And it only stopped when he played. Playing soothed him and the pain there was. Not a big pain, nothing too serious, more like an itch and he didn’t know how to scratch it any other way.

He had been busy the last four month, like he had been the last 2000 years — give or take 4.5 billion, also the one thing that worked inside his head was the girl, the woman in the dinner.

And Clara. The woman in his head. All those stories, of her and him and sometimes he wasn’t sure if she was real, because everything felt like a dream. Unclear on one side, on the other, the dream had just enough facts, that he knew with all his being she was not just a dream.

And then of course, there was this happening four month ago, when the dinner simply had vanished around him, and his Tardis had stood there, waiting for him — what was impossible, because he knew he had left it in London. Sometimes odd things happens.

The painting. Of her, it was her. He knew, and yet he didn’t because his mind was all fuzzy and confused, and that’s why he knew something had happened. That the story he had told her was not just a story, it was important. So, so important. And there was the problem, because he was the Doctor and the Doctor sometimes missed something important. It was basically the story of his life.

Then his telephone rang, and first he didn’t hear it because he was playing, and a bit singing even, and then he wasn’t hearing it because he was telling himself the story again. Over and over, because he was sure, if he only thought long and hard enough about it, something in his stupid mind would crack open and the memories would pop up like flowers in a desert after the rain.

The ringing annoyed him so much, that he, in the end, answered. He always did answer, and when he answered it this time, the person on the other side of the line had become speechless.

He was about to hang up again, but then something in his mind, something that was buried found it’s way up to the sunshine, and he didn’t hang up. It were the cards, cards laying around on the console, telling him how to behave, telling him what to say, and for the fraction of a second he had a memory in front of him, someone telling him to rely on the cards, because they made him better.

“Helllooo?”

It was a woman, and he tried to remember the voice, but he was so rubbish with remembering since the incident and then she said her name. Clara.

“Clara!” it came out of his mouth, his throat without him wanting it. Like an impulse, like a routine. A routine that felt suddenly so good and the itch was gone for moment.

Her name, out of his mouth, cheerful, happy, like he used to answer when she had called him back in the old days, and it made her heart go warm and she smiled sadly. He said it as if he knew her and still there was a question buried in it.

“My… Clara?” he asked cautious.

Why did the words break her heart. A heart that wasn’t beating. How ridiculous, she thought.

“You are the Clara from the diner, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Clara couldn’t be sure what she was allowed to tell him, because if his mind would crack open and all the memories would come back, where was the sense in all this then?

He thought carefully what to say or ask next, his eyes trailing around in the console room, ending by the blackboard. … _Be a Doctor._

It hadn’t been his handwriting, and he had thought he might had a new companion he had forgotten about. After wandering around in the Tardis for hours, the only thing he could find were old rooms of old, long gone companions, and a door he wasn’t able to enter. Locked, and nothing he told the Tardis changed it. He had given up with a sigh, returning to the console room. Because of the tunes in his head. Playing.

“I know you, don’t I?”

“You met me in the diner, didn’t you?”

“That’s not what I meant,” he smirked. “The story I told you… that was about you, about us, wasn't it? And don’t say no, because I am sure it was you. There was this picture on my Tardis door.”

“I really can’t,” she began, but stopped herself, because actually she could.

“It was you who called me,” he said. Simple as that.

Something inside him told him, she wasn’t able to tell him she was real, that it was indeed her, because in the end it was not really necessary, as he knew. Deep down he knew. It just annoyed him, that the memories seemed more or less there but smeared and in the wrong order. “It’s you, I know it’s you. Also it doesn’t change the fact, that I can’t remember it all, something is missing. Like when you dream about something, that feels so real, and then you wake up and it starts to fade. You are able to hold onto it, but nevertheless, things go missing.”

“Are you okay?” she then asked, and wants to fly over to his Tardis to throw herself into his arms, just for a bit. One last hug, one last kiss, one last admission.

“Well,” he began in his typical Doctor tone. “Aside the fact that something is missing in my head, I am great. And you?”

“I am great too,” she said, and it’s partly true and partly not. “I have a Tardis now.”

He smiled, he knew that of course too, but loved the fact she is telling it to him like an excited kid, “It’s great, isn’t it?” They are both little kids in some way.

“It’s bloody brilliant! Oh, Doctor,” she cheered, forgetting the given reality, “just yesterday, we fought some Silurians. It was epic! You would have been proud.”

The Doctor is fairly certain he would have been proud, even he couldn’t remember, he knew he would have been, “You still flying around as the American diner?”

“Yes,” she chuckled. “I think the chameleon circuit is broken.”

“Oh, they are all faulty somehow,” he laughed over the line. “Also not that bad, so I know what to look after.”

“There are many diners in the galaxy,” Clara rubbed around one of the buttons absently.

“Good thing I have a time machine, and time and space at hand,” without knowing he rubbed around like she did on his console. There was a chance it was even the same button.

For a moment she forgot why they couldn’t be together anymore, and brought up a dare, “Why not meet up right now, I mail you my coordinates and …”

He felt her desires, they were the same in his chest, “We both know…,” he trailed off, his mind making a turn toward another question, that bugged him since a while. “Were we involved?”

Clara’s eyebrows shot up, “Involved?” Good question somehow, she thought. “What does your head tells you?”

He took a couple of long breaths, waited, his eyes fall close, “I punched a wall for 4.5 billion years for you. And I am very sure you gave me a shout for doing it!” she smiled. “I think that tells a lot.”

“Yes, it does.”

“We might never can see us again,” he then said, knowing it’s nothing she wanted to hear or he wanted to really say out loud, but it had to be said because, still after all, he had a duty of care.

“We might, yes,” she shuffled on the spot, she knew the phone call was about to come to an end, knows they have to let go. “One last question, Doctor?”

“Yes?”

“The song. The one you were playing, is it finished?”

“Not quite, still working on the details, why?” he asked, glancing over to his guitar.

“Just thought, that one day, you could play it to me,” a single tear ran down her cheek. “Just once.”

He thought about it, and started to nod, “Yes, I’ll do that. There’ll be a time and a date, and then I’ll play you a song. One last song.” When did he get so emotional, he asked himself, wiping a tear that had collided with the console away. “I’d like that.”

“Me too,” Clara whispered. “Bye, Doctor.”

“Bye, my Clara.”

Maybe it was true, that sometimes memories become stories, when we forget them. And some of them maybe become songs. The song of Clara… and the Doctor.

Songs end, but the story never does.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have to admit I was so so close to cry while writing this, and I am sorry if I made anyone cry. 
> 
> Thanks for reading this, and I would love to read a comment! Take care!


End file.
